{"id":16629,"date":"2021-08-29T16:11:13","date_gmt":"2021-08-29T16:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=16629"},"modified":"2021-08-29T15:33:25","modified_gmt":"2021-08-29T15:33:25","slug":"court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence","title":{"rendered":"Court of Appeal upholds Uwera sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Uganda<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>The Court of Appeal, on August, 24, 2020, delivered its judgment in respect of a case in which Jackline Uwera was convicted in 2016 of the murder of her husband, Juvenal Nsenga.<\/p>\n

The trial court believed that she deliberately drove a motor vehicle that rammed into the gate at their home that ultimately hit and dragged her husband for a considerable distance.<\/p>\n

He died of the injuries that he sustained. Uwera was, as a result, sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. She appealed the conviction and the sentence.<\/p>\n

The duty of the Court of Appeal in this matter was to re-evaluate the initial evidence before the trial court and then to determine whether the conclusions reached by the trial court should be allowed to stand or not.<\/p>\n

The trial court rejected Uwera\u2019s assertion that the death of her husband was as a result of an accident.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal observed that in such a case the credibility of the defence of an accident must be established and that when there is a successful defence of an accident the accused person will be deemed not to have caused the death of the deceased with malice aforethought.<\/p>\n

It was with this in mind that the Appellant court reviewed the evidence on record.<\/p>\n

Uwera\u2019s evidence<\/p>\n

While giving evidence in the trial court, Uwera testified to the effect that although she was driving the car that knocked down her husband on the fateful day, the car had jerked without her wilful involvement.<\/p>\n

After jerking, the motor vehicle then rammed into the gate and knocked her husband who was standing just behind the gate when he was opening it.<\/p>\n

The trial court did not believe this evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis court is not inclined to believe this version of the story for the following reasons; one does not even have to be an expert on vehicles to know that a car with a low suspension cannot knock, let alone overrun an object the size of an adult human being and the driver fails to detect that object. She saw the gate being opened and therefore knew that somebody was in the middle of the driveway, still in the process of opening the gate.<\/p>\n

She was familiar with the manner in which the gate opens.\u201d Further the trial court noted that the car model was not known to have been among the models associated with unintended acceleration.<\/p>\n

The trial court observed \u201cIt cannot be that the car jerked on its own without the driver doing anything to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidence<\/p>\n

The lawyers representing Uwera in the appellant court submitted that there could have been a sudden involuntary acceleration of the car caused by a manufacturer defect in the car. The lawyers pointed out that the accelerator pedal of the car was covered by an additional plastic floor mat which was not to the manufacturer design.<\/p>\n

The appellant court however reviewed the evidence of the Inspector of Vehicles in the trial court; the expert told court the plastic carpet was light and the vehicle would still perform well with it. In his view, the floor mat (carpet) could not have caused any accidental acceleration and there was no evidence to suggest that the vehicle was defective in any way.<\/p>\n

This evidence was not seriously shaken in cross-examination. It is a well-established principle that, in general, a party must challenge in cross-examination the evidence of any witness of the opposing party if he or she wishes to argue that evidence given on a particular matter should not be accepted.<\/p>\n

Failure to cross-examine a witness on a particular point may lead court to infer that the cross-examining party accepts the witness\u2019 evidence, and it would be difficult to suggest that the evidence should be rejected.<\/p>\n

The Court of appeal after re-evaluating the evidence on record observed that the only evidence on record showed that the car which knocked the deceased and driven by Uwera was in perfect mechanical condition and could not jerk in the manner alleged by her in her evidence.<\/p>\n

The court was not persuaded by attempts by the lawyers representing Uwera to adduce evidence at bar attempting to show that there was unintended acceleration of the car.<\/p>\n

Absence of alternative expert evidence<\/p>\n

It was also observed that in other jurisdictions, courts have allowed an accused person who relies on the defence of an accident to bring her own expert witness to assist court in determining the matter, especially when they give evidence which departs from the prosecution expert evidence in the matter.<\/p>\n

This is in no way shifting the burden of proof from the prosecution but is a way of rebutting the assertions of the prosecution expert evidence.<\/p>\n

In this case, the prosecution evidence was not rebutted and to the Court of Appeal, the trial court was right to rely on it.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal was of the view that Uwera\u2019s conduct in ramming into the gate which her husband was opening for her was not accidental.<\/p>\n

To court it was immaterial that she did not know it was her husband who was opening the gate, as court would still have found her guilty of murder, if it had been the gateman who had been killed instead of her husband.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. The Court of Appeal, on August, 24, 2020, delivered its judgment in respect of a case in which Jackline Uwera was convicted in 2016 of the murder of her husband, Juvenal Nsenga. The trial court believed that she deliberately drove a motor vehicle that rammed into the gate at their home that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":16628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-16629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nCourt of Appeal upholds Uwera sentence - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Court of Appeal, on August, 24, 2020, delivered its judgment in respect of a case in which Jackline Uwera was convic ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court of Appeal upholds Uwera sentence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Court of Appeal, on August, 24, 2020, delivered its judgment in respect of a case in which Jackline Uwera was convic ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-08-29T16:11:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/08\/img-612ba8b0b11c9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Court of Appeal upholds Uwera sentence\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-08-29T16:11:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence\"},\"wordCount\":880,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/08\/img-612ba8b0b11c9.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/court-of-appeal-upholds-uwera-sentence\",\"name\":\"Court of Appeal upholds Uwera sentence - 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